Which do you fear more, failure or success?

Where many people view me as a cynic, I’m one of the few people I know that actually make new years resolutions.
I have to admit, I’m a little puzzled by the way people don’t just not do resolutions, but dislike and resist them.
Since I was already puzzled I decided to ponder, and you know how pondering is a slippery slope to thinking.

The most common new years resolutions are a no-brainer.

Stop smoking

Get Fit

Lose Weight

Enjoy Life More

Quit Drinking

Get Organized

Learn Something New

Get Out of Debt

Spend more time with the Family

Help Others

Resolutions are very simple in that they have only one of two outcomes. You either succeed or fail. Now, nobody I know, including me, wants to fail and life is like a baseball pitching machine in how it loves to throw lots of balls our way, so we’re not in short supply of opportunities to fail. With that in mind it’s not hard to understand why some people aren’t in a rush to create even more chances for failure in their lives.

But… lets not underestimate the hidden curse of success. Success is like buying a Ferrari. You’ve worked hard to afford it. You’ve lusted over piles of sales brochures, and finally the day comes when you roll that baby out of the showroom. Your eyes wander lovingly over the leather, chrome, and that Ferrari badge. Your dream has come true. And you get to lounge in that pride of ownership for about two minutes. But thoughts begin creeping in like how everyone elses car is a pile of junk ready to scratch your paint. Every time you go somewhere you’ll have to park as far as possible from the common rabble. And speed bump! Asphalt land mines poised to rip out your undercarriage.

Success with anything can be like the Ferrari. Once you lose weight, stop smoking, get out of debt, etc., there’s that worry you’ll slip up; put on a few pounds, things’ll get stressful and you’ll have a smoke, or start to max out that credit card, again. Actually, this isn’t entirely accurate. These worries don’t often effect the people that reach these goals. They’re much more looming on the person that ponders setting out on the goal.

Then, of course, there’s those who are simply lazy and don’t want to make the effort. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there’s others that have their own reason for not looking to improve themselves. Um… that didn’t come out right. What I meant to say was it’s understandable people like being fat, or having a drinking problem… oh, that didn’t come out right either. Well, you get the idea.

Now, what kind of host would I be if I just sat here pontificating about change, filling you with hope, but without providing any kind of help? I guess that would make me like Obama. Don’t worry, I won’t piss in your ear and tell you it’s raining.
Below I’ve provided some useful tool to help you on your path to reaching your goals.

After all, aren’t you worth it?Joe’s Goals Watch your progress and feed your ego at the same timeClean out those annoying emailsPay all your bills on timeStop eating out. NoTakeOut aims to take the hassle out of meal planning and shopping. Instead of just throwing recipes at you, the site breaks down what you need every step of the way
And lastly, How to go from sedentary to running in five steps

And, just in case everything I’ve said makes no difference, doesn’t inspire you, or bored you to tears, I’ll leave this with you. A great explanation of why we do it.